Park City won’t host World Cup, opener moves to Lake Placid

The World Cup bobsled and skeleton season will start a week later than originally planned, and Lake Placid, New York will now play host to the first two racing weekends on the schedule.

A mechanical failure at the track in Park City, Utah forced organizers to scrub plans to open the season there later this month. The opening weekend of races has been rescheduled for Dec. 7-8 in Lake Placid, followed by the regularly scheduled second weekend of the season there from Dec. 13-15.

The Park City track’s refrigeration pump system is being repaired, but officials in Utah said there is no guarantee that it would be ready to ensure “prime condition” for the World Cup opener there. So international officials in cooperation with organizers in Lake Placid decided the best move would be to have the rare back-to-back weekends at Mount Van Hoevenberg.

“Though the track management has acted immediately and tried to repair the system, it cannot guarantee that it will be ready by the time of the World Cup,” the International Bobsled and Skeleton Federation said in a letter to teams announcing the change. “In order to avoid any risk not hosting the event it was decided to move it to Lake Placid.”

It will now be an extremely hectic start of the racing season in Lake Placid. The International Luge Federation will hold the second World Cup of its season at Mount Van Hoevenberg on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, the start of what will now be three straight weekends of World Cup racing there.

There will be two 2-man bobsled races on the Dec. 7-8 weekend in Lake Placid, with no 4-man. The following weekend will see two 4-man races held, with no 2-man event.